The Fisher King

Jack Lucas, a narcissistic, misanthropic shock jock, becomes suicidal and despondent when his insensitive on-air comments inadvertently prompt a mentally unstable caller to commit a mass murder–suicide at a Manhattan restaurant. Three years later, Jack is working for his girlfriend Anne in a video store, and is in a mostly drunken, depressed state.

One night, while on a bender, he contemplates suicide. However, he is attacked and nearly set on fire by thugs who mistake him for a homeless person. He is rescued by Parry, a delusional homeless man who claims his mission is to find the Holy Grail.

Parry tries to enlist Jack's help in getting the grail, explaining that the Fisher King was charged by God with finding the Holy Grail, but incurred an incapacitating wound for his sin of pride. "A Fool asks the King why he suffers, and when the King says he is thirsty, the Fool gives him a cup of water to drink. The King realizes the cup is the Grail and asks, 'How did you find what my brightest and bravest could not?' The Fool said 'I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty.'"

Jack is initially reluctant but acquiesces after learning that he is partially responsible for Parry's current condition. Parry, whose real name is Henry Sagan, had been a teacher at Hunter College. After witnessing his wife's gruesome death at the same mass shooting Jack had provoked, Henry had a psychotic break and became catatonic. When he woke, he took on the persona of Parry and became obsessed with the legend of the Fisher King. With Parry as his shielding persona, mentions of reality panic him and he is continually haunted by a terrifying, hallucinatory Red Knight, from a distorted memory of his wife's head exploding from a shotgun blast.

Jack seeks to redeem himself by helping Parry find love again. Lydia, a shy woman with whom Parry is smitten, is prodded into meeting Parry and joining Jack and Anne for a dinner date. Afterwards, Parry walks Lydia home and declares his love for her; she reciprocates, but the brush with reality summons the Red Knight. Fleeing his vision and the memory of his wife's murder, he is ambushed by the same thugs against whom he had defended Jack. Beaten mercilessly, Parry becomes catatonic again. Jack, feeling whole again after 'saving' Parry, breaks up with Anne and begins to rebuild his career, but has a crisis of conscience during a sitcom pitch after snubbing a vagrant who had previously done him a favor.

After finding out what happened to Parry, Jack dons Parry's clothing and infiltrates the Upper East Side castle of a famous architect and retrieves the "Grail", a trophy which Parry believes to be the real Grail. During the theft, Jack finds the architect unconscious from attempting suicide. He triggers the alarm while leaving, alerting authorities and saving the man's life.

When he brings the “Grail” to Parry, Parry regains consciousness and tells a silent Jack he's ready to miss his wife now. Lydia comes to visit Parry in the hospital; she finds him awake and leading the patients of the ward in a rendition of "How About You?" with Jack. Parry and Lydia embrace, and Jack reconciles with Anne, telling her that he loves her. She slaps him, but then grabs and kisses him. Later, Jack and Parry lie naked in Central Park gazing at the clouds, as a fireworks display over New York presents "The End".

During an appearance on an episode of The Directors, Gilliam stated that he wanted to do the film because he was tired of big budget special effects films, such as his previous film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which went over budget and cost over $45 million, nearly twice as much as The Fisher King's budget of $24 million. This was the first film Gilliam directed in which he was not involved in writing the screenplay, as well as his first film not to feature any other members of Monty Python.

According to The Directors episode, Gilliam came up with the scene where Robin Williams and Amanda Plummer meet during a huge waltz in the middle of Grand Central Terminal, because he felt the scene LaGravenese had written, in which a large group of people in a crowded subway listen to a homeless woman sing with a beautiful voice that fills the room, wasn't working. He was hesitant about this at first, because his original intentions were just to shoot the script and the waltz would make it "a Terry Gilliam film". The scene was shot in one night with a mix of professional extras and passengers alighting from the train.

• List of films based on Arthurian legend

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Fisher King (film).

• The Fisher King at IMDb
• The Fisher King at Box Office Mojo
• The Fisher King at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Fisher King at Metacritic
• The Fisher King: In the Kingdom of the Imperfect an essay by Bilge Ebiri at the Criterion Collection